[guest post by Dana]
President Trump officially launched his re-election campaign with a rally in Orlando, Florida last night, and with a near-capacity crowd in attendance. According to offcial turnstile counts provided by the city of Olando, the 19,792 spectators fell slightly shy of the 20,000 capacity for the Amway Center. President Trump claimed during the rally:
“You know if we have three or four empty seats, the fake news will say, ‘Hey, they didn’t fill it up,’” Trump said at the rally. “They said, maybe we shouldn’t go to Orlando, we should go someplace else. I said, no, go to Orlando. Not only did we fill it up, we had 120,000 requests.”
To note:
Anyone could have requested two tickets at the Trump campaign’s website before the event, with a text verification required. Seating in the arena was mostly first-come, first-serve.
While most of the sections were filled to capacity, several sections in the upper tier of the arena had empty seats as the time approached for Trump to start his speech. But there also was a standing-room-only section on the arena floor in front of the stage that was crowded with people.
About an hour before Trump began to speak at 8:14 p.m., the long lines snaking around the Amway Center were gone and people could easily walk into the event. Only a few dozen people watched on screens outside at the campaign’s “45 Fest.”
None of this is really a big deal, except to President Trump, who will argue crowd size any day of the week, and will no doubt be contesting the actual count at some later point in time.
On a side note, reports state that President Trump raised nearly a whopping $25 million in the first 24 hours of his reelection campaigning:
The $24.8 million sum is several magnitudes higher than the leading Democratic candidates seeking the chance to challenge Trump in 2020. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign said in April it pulled in $6.3 million during the 24 hours after he announced his third White House run.
Remember that these numbers are coming from the campaign itself: All 24-hour fundraising numbers come directly from the campaigns themselves or party committees, rather than the Federal Elections Commission. Fundraising figures reported by the campaign will be publicly available by July 15 and will offer more detail, including amounts of money spent, and cash-on-hand totals.
And speaking of yuge numbers: Still no word from the White House when President Trump will pay off his MAGA rally debts :
A new investigation from NBC News and the Center for Public Integrity found the Trump campaign owes city governments across the country upwards of $800,000 for police and public safety costs from his events.
The largest invoice to date comes from El Paso, Texas, where the president held a campaign rally in February. Trump still owes the city $470,417 for the event, the invoice shows.
Some invoices date back to 2016, before Trump was elected president. His 2016 campaign skipped out on municipal public safety bills from Green Bay and Eau Claire, Wisconsin; Tucson, Arizona; Burlington, Vermont and Spokane, Washington, according to the report.
Another five cities, including El Paso; Mesa, Arizona; Billings, Montana; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Lebanon, Ohio, are owed a combined $629,015.88.
Huge numbers, indeed.
–Dana